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April/May Lite Entry - Vicinato Spavento

"We're the Malvagios. We own this neighbourhood."

Southwest of the palazzos and villas where the children of the ruling elite indulge their hedonism, north of the canals that bring goods to the Commercio district, and just past the quieter end of the bustling Piazza Mercato where the city trades its goods lies the Vicinato Spavento, a quiet little neighbourhood of closed doors and shuttered windows. A few citizens of the city know this as a place to come to get things that can't be found anywhere else. Farina Malvagio sells bread and pastries that rival anything the nobles are eating. A few of her special customers know about the back room and the small but expensive "spices" she sells there. What makes her flour so wonderful? Old Cibo Malvagio's shop usually has good cuts of meat at surprising prices and if you come after dark he might be able to dispose of some spoiled meat for you. Off the main road the more daring visitors find Tesoro Malvagio's Banco which always seems to have the most interesting and rare trinkets on its tables. No point in asking where they come from, Tesoro never tells. Those with more secretive needs might find the Sicarios nearby, a close-knit band of Malvagio brothers and sisters who can make particular sorts of problems disappear. Permanently.
Not long ago the Magistrate Avaro, concerned that some of his own missing property might be for sale at Tesoro's, sent his personal guard in to the neighbourhood to take back what was his. Sadly Avaro has fallen on hard times lately, and his guards have not been seen since the night they took their swords to Vicinato Spavento.

I might be pushing the rules for this challenge a bit, so if a family with criminal leanings doesn't fit the bill, do let me know. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to try out some mapping techniques that I need to get sorted.

This is just my rough layout in Illustrator before I start pulling layers over to Photoshop to make it look like something. I also get to try out one of my variant cobblestone brushes!

I'm pretty embarrassed but I managed to get the month wrong. This was supposed to be an entry for the current challenge. I really tried very hard to get everything right in my post. Probably I tried too hard! Not sure if it can be changed, but either way, I'll keep working on it!

Not much has changed, but a little progress on the tiles. I really did myself in trying to have a bunch of narrow streets that also change elevation. Well, this was supposed to be a learning experience and I'm learning that sometimes simple is good!

### LATEST WIP ###
cheers,
Meshon

PS: If a kindly soul could fix my embarrassing mistake with the months in the post title I would be ever so grateful!

Looking good! I really like that brick pattern in the streets. Although, was it intentional to have the canal water show through?

I changed the thread title, but it only shows as changed for me in the thread itself, not on the main subforum menu... *runs to get help from big brother CLs*

edit: never mind. Figured it out.

Thank you for the fix! As to the canal showing through... yeah, I'm going to make some sort of bridges for those two spots but I haven't quite sorted out what those will look like yet. The canal also will need some work and I think I should probably add some doors...

Making bits of progress here and there. Ideally this map would have a bunch of different levels, but I'm going to try to get all the important things onto one flat plane that represents two height levels. The section of the map north of the main street is mostly one level above that street, inspired by old cities that followed existing geography rather than flattening everything for more regular building.